explain xkcd - User contributions [en]

2963: House Inputs and Outputs

2024-07-25T17:54:13Z

162.158.186.35: /* Explanation */ better phrasing

{{comic
| number = 2963
| date = July 24, 2024
| title = House Inputs and Outputs
| image = house_inputs_and_outputs_2x.png
| imagesize = 740x684px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = People think power over ethernet is so great, and yet when I try to do water over ethernet everyone yells at me.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a possible reference to [[1037: Umwelt]] in panel 16 - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This is another comic in a series depicting {{w|confusion matrix|confusion matrices}}, similar to [[2420: Appliances]], [[2813: What To Do]] and [[1890: What to Bring]]. It is arranged as a table of five columns of conduits to and from a house, by five rows of resources and people, each of which typically enter, exit or both enter ''and'' exit the house via a least one of the identified conduits. The table cells have a green background for compatible methods of transit and a red tint is used for the more problematic pairings. Each panel can be read as "[row label] [entering and/or exiting] the house via the [column label]", for example, "Fresh water entering the house via the well".

{| class="wikitable" style="background-color: lightpink;"
|+ House Inputs and Outputs
! !! Well !! Garage !! Power lines !! Front door !! Septic tank
|-
! Fresh water (Input)
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The purpose of a well is usually to pump fresh water into the home, primarily for drinking or washing. It may be unnecessary in many places if a reliable {{w|water supply network}} is available. || Long gone are the days of {{w|Labours_of_Hercules#Fifth:_Augean_stables|having to clean up after your primary mode of transportation}}, for most people. || Water either shouldn't, or cannot be carried through electrical lines. || Many people prefer to control the amount of water they get, and the water may damage things inside the house. || Most people don't want anything they drink to contain (or go through pipes that have contained) sewage.
|-
! Cars (Input/Output)
| Most cars manufactured in recent years can't fit inside a well.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Garages are in fact built for the storage of cars and other similarly-sized vehicles. Placing a car in one will both help protect it from the elements and make it easier to access from inside your own home. || As of yet, cars cannot be transferred through power lines and require roads to travel on. However, this could significantly reduce travel costs. || Most cars can’t fit through doors, apart from the garage door. || Comedian {{w|Garrison Keillor}}'s 2008 ''More News from Lake Wobegon'' includes a story where an old septic tank is discovered to actually be a buried car.[https://theseriouscomedysite.com/comedy-cd-or-download/garrison-keillor-more-news-from-lake-wobegon/]
|-
! Electricity (Input)
| This would contaminate your water supply. || In the United States, lightning is responsible for causing around 24,600 structure fires annually, resulting in $8 to $10 billion in losses.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| Power lines are designed to facilitate the connection of individual homes to the broader local power network. [[Randall]] omits the fact that electricity can also be an output; e.g. houses with solar panels regularly export electricity too. || {{w|Benjamin Franklin}} supposedly independently{{acn}} re-invented {{w|Prokop Diviš}}'s {{w|lightning rod}} to prevent lightning strike damage to structures. || As Knit Cap demonstrates, this would not be the most convenient idea.
|-
! People (Input/Output)
|style="background-color: lightpink"| This depicts a view from inside a well, a very dangerous place for most people.{{Citation needed}} As a [[:Category:Comics with inverted brightness|dark scene]], it is drawn <span style="background-color: black; color: lightpink;">red-on-black</span>. The motif resembles poster art for the 2002 horror movie remake ''{{w|The Ring (2002 film)|The Ring}}'', which involves a girl left to die in a well who becomes a vengeful ghost (see also [[396: The Ring]]).
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A person can enter and exit their home through a garage door, provided the garage has an internal door to the rest of the home. Not the best way to welcome guests though. || Overhead power lines to homes are generally not strong enough to climb, and attempting to do so incurs a very serious risk of electrocution.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| The front door of a home is designed for entry and exit of humans and similarly sized items. || In general, people find crawling through waste unwanted. Also, the septic tank is not connected to the street.
|-
! Sewage (Output)
| Sewage in drinking water can cause disease. It is/was the main cause for most {{w|cholera}} epedemics.
|colspan=3| Sewage spills are smelly, disgusting, hard to clean, and can destroy carpets, floors, and drywall.
|style="background-color: palegreen;"| A {{w|septic tank}} is an underground chamber through which wastewater flows for basic {{w|sewage treatment}}.
|}

The title text references {{w|Power over Ethernet|power over ethernet (PoE)}}, first implemented in the early 2000s, which passes electric power along with data on twisted-pair Ethernet cabling. This is a welcome development, as it removes the need for many lower-power network-connected devices to have independent power supplies, usually simplifying their installation and relocation. While networked water delivery ("running water") is also a welcome development, doing so over ethernet cables would be disastrous, risking the destruction of linked electronic devices (nearly all of which are water-intolerant) while not providing enough water for 'normal' use. Randall would get off easy if he were merely to be yelled at.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

:[A 5x5 grid of squares. The columns are labeled: Well, Garage, Power lines, Front door, Septic tank. Each row's label has an arrow and a house next to it. The rows are: Fresh water (horizontal arrow towards house), Cars (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Electricity (horizontal arrow into house), People (two-directional horizontal arrow and house), Sewage (vertical arrow out of bottom of house).]

:Well, Fresh water: [green]
::Voice from house: Mmm! Refreshing!

:Garage, Fresh water: [red]
::''Fwoosh''

:Power lines, Fresh water: [red]

:Front door, Fresh water: [red]
::Voice from house: Stop it!
::''Fwoosh!''

:Septic tank, Fresh water: [red]
::Voice from house: Eww.

:Well, Cars: [red]

:Garage, Cars: [green]

:Power lines, Cars: [red]

:Front door, Cars: [red]
::Voice from car: Do you think I scratched the paint?

:Septic tank, Cars: [red]

:Well, Electricity: [red]
::Cueball's laptop: ⚠Low battery

:Garage, Electricity: [red]
::''BOOM''

:Power lines, Electricity: [green]

:Front door, Electricity: [red]
::''BOOM''

:Septic tank, Electricity: [red]
::Knit Cap: Why won't my console turn on?

:Well, People: [red (and black)]

:Garage, People: [green]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Power lines, People: [red]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Front door, People: [green]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Septic tank, People: [red]
::Cueball: Bye!

:Well, Sewage: [red]
::Voice from house: ''Why do I keep getting sick???

:Garage, Sewage: [red]
::Cueball: Oh no.

:Power lines, Sewage: [red]
::Cueball: Eww.

:Front door, Sewage: [red]
::Cueball: Oh ''no''.

:Septic tank, Sewage: [green]
::''Flush''

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Comics with color]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Cueball]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Megan]]
[[Category:Comics featuring Knit Cap]]
[[Category:Confusion matrices]]
[[Category:Multiple Cueballs]]
[[Category:Charts]]

2956: Number Line Branch

2024-07-09T05:37:04Z

162.158.186.35:

{{comic
| number = 2956
| date = July 8, 2024
| title = Number Line Branch
| image = number_line_branch_2x.png
| imagesize = 469x235px
| noexpand = true
| titletext = Attention all passengers: This is an express sequence to infinity. If your stop is not a power of two, please disembark now.
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by a SECOND BOT TO REDUCE CONGESTION - Please change this comment when editing this page. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
This comic likens the {{w|number line}} to a line of a railroad or subway system. These often have branches where different trains continue on to a different destination, with different stops along the way. In the number line, one branch (presumably the original) contains ordinary numbers, while the newly opened branch consists of some completely different numbers, denoted with different symbols as an analogue to those we use as digits. The branches seems to split at π.

The symbols seen are:
* a rectangle, representing thrembo,
* a vertical bar with two perpendicular "prongs" to the right, like a {{w|double turnstile}} or a sideways lowercase pi,
* a vertical bar topped by a circle bisected by it, like some versions of a lowercase phi,
* a spiral, and
* a triangle, like an uppercase delta.
Some of these symbols are already used elsewhere in mathematics.

The sequence ending with a bold mark at Δ (whereas the original number line fades out) suggests that it is the end of this branching sequence. Mathematicians, apparently, could only afford to construct 5 additional numbers, or their research hasn't yet found other numbers.

The title text makes a parallel between a train stopping at a station and a numerical sequence "stopping" at a number – that is, taking it as a value. It's a spoof of announcements that are typically made on trains, so that riders can confirm that they're on a train that goes to their desired station; an "express train" typically makes fewer stops so it can reach its final destination sooner. In this case, the express train only stops at powers of 2; presumably the "local" stops at every integer, so the travel time will be exponentially longer. Either way, the number line extends to infinity, so it will take forever to get to the final destination.

A fictional number was previously shown in [[899: Number Line]] ("gird"), and fictional ''numerals'' were shown in [[2206: Mavis Beacon]]. And similar treatment of mathematics as public infrastructure was seen in [[2735: Coordinate Plane Closure]].

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
:[The number line for natural numbers, going from 0 to 10 and trailing off, with a marker at 0 to indicate that it is the start of the sequence. At about 3.125, the line branches off into a second line, which contains five odd-looking symbols, and stops at the fifth one.]
:Caption: Good news! After thousands of years, mathematicians have finally opened a second branch on the number line to reduce congestion.

{{comic discussion}}

[[Category:Math]]

739: Malamanteau

2024-02-13T23:17:29Z

162.158.186.35: Deleted 404 dead link to Wiki page

{{comic
| number = 739
| date = May 12, 2010
| title = Malamanteau
| image = malamanteau.png
| titletext = The article has twenty-three citations, one of which is an obscure manuscript from the 1490s and the other twenty-two are arguments on LanguageLog.
}}

==Explanation==
A {{w|malapropism}} is the use of an incorrect word in place of a word with a similar sound, resulting in a nonsensical utterance. An example of a {{w|malapropism}} is {{w|Yogi Berra}}'s statement: "Texas has a lot of electrical votes," rather than "electoral votes". A {{w|portmanteau}} is a word made up of two or more combined words. For example, motel is a portmanteau, from the words motor and hotel. A {{w|neologism}} is simply a newly coined word that is not yet in common use.

Here, [[Randall]] shows a hypothetical Wikipedia page of the word "malamanteau" which is both a portmanteau of "malapropism" and "portmanteau" and a neologism. The method used to create this new word is one of the very words used in the process. This is called a [[917|meta]] or "self-referential" joke.

By using many large obscure words in one sentence, Randall may also be picking on linguists, [[114|one]] [[1483|of]] his [[1602|favorite]] [[2390|subjects]], who are known for coining and using such words.

"Malamanteau" was originally coined in 2007, when it was proposed by user [http://www.metafilter.com/user/17900 ludwig_van] on [http://www.metafilter.com Metafilter] as a term for language errors like "flustrated" (flustered & frustrated) and "misconscrewed" (misconstrued & screwed).

The bottom line of the comic (Ever notice how Wikipedia has a few words it ''really'' likes?) is a reference to a large number of Wikipedia pages that start by labeling their subject matter as a malapropism, a portmanteau, or a neologism.

In response to this comic, editors at Wikipedia created a {{w|malamanteau}} page. It was deleted multiple times and eventually turned into a redirect to the Wikipedia page for {{w|xkcd}}. Malamanteau and the controversy at Wikipedia got coverage at ''The Economist'' and ''The Boston Globe''. The comic is used to illustrate this section of the xkcd Wikipedia article. In order for this to be possible Randall had to change the license for this particular comic. This has been explained in a unique [[Header text|header text]] that is only displayed on the [[Header text#Malamanteau|page for Malamanteau]].

The title text refers to Wikipedia's requirements of citations for a page on there to exist. It also refers to the wide range of places citations can be obtained from, showing a direct opposition due to the use of very different citations (The Language Log arguments are modern and informal, whereas the obscure manuscript is formal and much older). The title text also refers to the fact that [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/ Language Log] is frequently used for Wikipedia citations.

Language Log is a blog that posts content relating to language and linguistics, including things like malapropisms and portmanteaus. While an informal source, it has produced new linguistic terms before, such as {{w|eggcorn}}. Its comments sections frequently contain discussions and arguments about English, whose participants are probably the same people who write Wikipedia articles about linguistic phenomena like malamanteaus. In actual fact, [http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/?p=2758 Malamanteau] did not appear on Language Log until after this strip. Malamanteau has since been referenced on the Language Log website, with a link to the comic in question. Language Log has referenced xkcd many times before, reposting the comics and linking to the xkcd website.

The title text jokingly refers to the "malamanteau" citations being Language Log references and a document from the 1490s, in reference to the fact that linguists, like those who post on Language Log, often use old documents as evidence, possibly to prove that construction is a longstanding feature of the language. The joke is that the only references to this word or concept are a 500-year-old document and linguists informally arguing about what it means. In reality, if these citations were the only evidence of the term's use, then it would be unlikely to be a notable feature worthy of a Wikipedia article. Most articles that are only cited by a single website tend to get deleted unless the subject has achieved significant coverage in outside news media.

The comic shows Wikipedia as it would have looked at the beginning of May 2010, using its then-current logo and the then-default “Monobook” skin. Incidentally, just a day after the comic’s publication, a new version of the {{w|Wikipedia logo}} was published, and the default skin was [[mw:Special:Code/MediaWiki/66383|switched]] to the “Vector” skin. Both of these still define the look of Wikipedia as of 2021 (though Vector undergoes continuous updates).

Interestingly, the "f" in Wikipedia's tagline "Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia" (the one below the page title, though not the same phrase in the sidebar element) is lowercase. This differs from the other letters, which are written in xkcd's standard all-caps font.

==Transcript==
:[The strip is set up as the top of a Wikipedia page.]
:[The Wikipedia logo.]
:Wikipedia
:The free encyclopedia
:[Side navigation options.]
:Navigation
:-Main Page
:-Contents
:-Featured Content
:-Current Events
:[Wikipedia header options.]
:Article Discussion Edit this page History
:[The article itself.]
:Malamanteau
:From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
:A malamanteau is a neologism for a portmanteau created by incorrectly combining a malapropism with a neologism. It is itself a portmanteau of [...the article cuts off.]
:[Below the panel.]
:Ever notice how Wikipedia has a few words it ''really'' likes?

==External links==
*[http://malamanteaus.blogspot.com/ Malamanteaus], a blog dedicated to the creation and proliferation of malamanteaux
*[http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Malamanteau Malamanteau] at urbandictionary.com
*[http://wordsquirt.com/Word/View/Malamanteau/dbb34d48-e565-4012-bcc8-56718f351712 Malamanteau] at wordsquirt.com
*[http://languagelog.ldc.upenn.edu/nll/index.php?s=malamanteau Entries referencing "malamanteau"] at LanguageLog.com
*Malamanteau Talk Page Archives {{w|Talk:Malamanteau/Archive 1|1}} and {{w|Talk:Malamanteau/Archive 2|2}} at Wikipedia.com
*{{w|Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Malamanteau}}
*{{w|File:Malamanteau page history.jpg|Screen capture}} of the deleted history for the "Malamanteau" page from Wikipedia
*[//en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Special:Log&page=Malamanteau Wikipedia Log for "Malamanteau"]
*Beutler, William (May 5, 2010) "[http://thewikipedian.net/2010/05/18/much-ado-about-malamanteau/ Much Ado About Malamanteau]". ''The Wikipedian''
*McKean, Erin (May 30, 2010) "[http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/05/30/one_day_wonder/ One Day Wonder]". ''The Boston Globe''
*R.L.G (Nov 4th 2010) "[http://www.economist.com/blogs/johnson/2010/11/neologisms Eggcorn, mashup, malamanteau or other?]". ''The Economonist''
*July 17, 2007 "[http://ask.metafilter.com/67192/How-to-define-this-language-mistake How to define this language mistake?]" - MetaFilter thread with the first usage

{{comic discussion}}
[[Category:Wikipedia]]
[[Category:CC-BY-SA comics]]
[[Category:Portmanteau‏‎]]
[[Category:Comics with lowercase text]]

Talk:2889: Greenhouse Effect

2024-02-03T05:06:42Z

162.158.186.35:

First description! FIRST 🤑 [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 18:45, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Is there a category or a name for the set of comics which make the observation of "x thing happened closer to Y thing than today"? --[[User:Raviolio|Raviolio]] ([[User talk:Raviolio|talk]]) 18:57, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
:Maybe Category:Timelines could work? [[User:42.book.addict|42.book.addict]] ([[User talk:42.book.addict|talk]]) 19:00, 2 February 2024 (UTC)
:It is also similar in structure to many of the comics in [https://www.explainxkcd.com/wiki/index.php/Category:Comics_to_make_one_feel_old| Category:Comics to make one feel old] but has a quite different theme [[Special:Contributions/172.69.6.156|172.69.6.156]] 23:06, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

Do we have a source for the "their answers closely match modern estimates"? that would be a good thing to add [[User:Happier7713|Happier7713]] ([[User talk:Happier7713|talk]]) 19:35, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

A nit -- the Newcomen atmospheric engine was invented in 1712 and is usually thought of as the first steam engine (at least of the modern, western, world). {{unsigned ip|108.162.245.36 |20:25, 2 February 2024}}
:The Newcomen was certainly started it, and tends to be somewhat overshadowed (I actually walked past ''the'' oldest still-in-place Newcomen beam engine, earlier today... never seen it working (by hydrau;ics, these days), but it's there). But its practical efficiency was limited by its operation, and it took (Boulton and) Watt to make it into the potentially mobile powerhouse that drove much of the really developed stuff (beyond mine-drainage/etc).
:Of course, it was also more fuel efficient, so if we'd have somehow done exactly the same amount of IR via Newcomen-style machines then we'd probably have accelerated the burning of resources across the same period, so... [[Special:Contributions/162.158.74.49|162.158.74.49]] 00:10, 3 February 2024 (UTC)

I would say we did plenty of work. In 1896, noone had any idea what renewable energy is. -- [[User:Hkmaly|Hkmaly]] ([[User talk:Hkmaly|talk]]) 23:48, 2 February 2024 (UTC)

“yet after 128 years there’s been close to no progress to changing our infrastructure to be renewable-energy based.” That might or might not be true, depending on how you define “close to no progress” but regardless of that, the comic does not make any such claim, and that part should be deleted frm the explanation of the comic. [[Special:Contributions/162.158.186.35|162.158.186.35]] 05:06, 3 February 2024 (UTC)